Misery... But only 40 days to go!

If I get much more miserable, I may just cry for the remainder of my pregnancy. I got weepy last night because my ribs hurt, my back hurt, I was exhausted, I had a really bad crick in my neck that just added insult to injury, I could not get comfortable enough to fall asleep and I have "restless legs" so I ended up pacing the bedroom and hallway until I could no longer stand up. I had my first really bad Braxton Hicks contraction last night while I was trying to get ready for bed and I was really close to just having a complete meltdown, but Jeremy rubbed on my back and neck and helped me to relax enough to at least stop pouting so that he could go to sleep. I feel really bad because I know he is exhausted from me getting up 4 or 5 times a night and flopping to get comfortable, and I don't normally fall asleep until after 1:30 anyway, so I know he's not fully rested. But then I don't feel too bad about it because I know it is just preparing us for the long nights ahead with Sydney and if I have to suffer, so does he. I'm just hoping the next few weeks go by really fast. We have 4 baby showers coming up, so that should make the time go by faster. It will at least make the time more enjoyable.
I have a Dr. Appt. this afternoon, and I'm so ready for the time when my Dr. says "You're dilated _ centimeters!" or "Let's schedule to induce you next week!" I'm trying not to get disappointed because I know this Dr. Appt. will be uneventful but I just feel like I'm about to pop. I'm estimating that Sydney probably weighs about 7 pounds at this point. She weighed almost 4 pounds on Feb. 10 and almost 5 pounds 2 weeks after that.
Maybe I should just go home and get a really good cry in, sip on a little red wine, and pass out for a few hours. At this point something has got to give or I am going to go insane. (I didn't mention that in addition to my body's chaos, we are also laying laminate wood flooring in our 600 sq. ft. den, so the house is torn apart because all the den furniture is in the dining room/bedroom/hallway, etc. and it is driving me insane because I feel disorganized and we also found out about a week ago that we have an ant/termite colony living in one of our interior walls and if Terminex doesn't get rid of them soon, I'm going to tear the walls down myself!)

The First Baby Shower

We had our first baby shower last Thursday given by my coworkers. My boss, Richard, let us shut the office down and we went to the Fox and Hound for lunch (Thank you, Richard)! Sydney got such wonderful things - A baby bath, 2 different types of baby gyms/playmats, a bunch of adorable clothes, a cute handmade throw, a silver engravable birth date keepsake, and a cute shabby chic mirror for her room. One of the girls also made the cutest and yummiest cake with pink icing and a stork crash landing with a baby on top. Thanks girls! You're the greatest!

Yeah, I'm looking a bit bloated these days...

9 weeks to go!

There isn't really a whole lot that has happened since my last post. I'm feeling a lot better and was able to quit taking my prescription pain medication a few days ago. I have still been taking Tylenol quit regularly and sleeping is still rather uncomfortable. Doing much of anything these days is becoming more uncomfortable... I'm starting to have quite a bit of pain in my hips and upper back. Most of the time this is from sitting too long and so I have to remember to take a break at work just to stretch some. The worst thing at this point is probably trying to get my socks and shoes on. It has become such a major undertaking in the morning that I have to allow myself a couple of minutes just to sit a catch my breath after getting dressed.
Tonight was our last night of Labor and Delivery Class and we got to tour the hospital, which I've been looking forward to. Our instructor led us through the hospital on what will be our "journey" once we go to check in. Being there made us realize how close we were to "the real thing" and that before we know it, we'll get to see our little Sydney.
I also want to say "thank you" to Jeremy's mom, Debra, for taking me shopping this weekend. She got me some more maternity clothes because I'm outgrowing what I now like to refer to as "Level 1" maternity outfits. She also brings little Sydney something every time we see her. This time Sydney got some new Janie and Jack outfits and a Beanie Frog from her MiMi (is this how we spell it?).
This week, we also got permission from my OB to have my sister in the room during delivery. So it will be Jeremy, my mom(because sometimes when you feel bad mom is the only one that knows how to help and I thought she should see a baby being delivered since she was put to sleep for all of her deliveries), and Sharon will be our videographer and photographer. That is, as long as she doesn't start getting nauseous or faint. Sharon, it's just like your fear of heights...don't look down!

Random Things (Blogging on Lortab)

Those of you who read my last post know that I'm on pain medication right now so I'm a bit loopy and while I'm waiting on my sleepiness to set in, I figure I'll blog.

We started our Labor and Delivery Classes last week. They've been a little too graphic for me. We watched a delivery video our first night and last night we learned all about anesthesia options - which means it was a whole night of talking about blood and needles and catheters. After about 45 minutes of in depth discussion about epidurals and spinals our instructor asked the class if we were all O.K. She noticed about half of us looking at the floor and I'm sure I was a shade or two paler than usual. We then watched a slide show involving the steps we will take when we come to check in to the hospital all the way to checking out. Our instructor took time to answer questions during the close-up slide of the baby sticking it's head out of the mother during delivery, and after about 3 minutes of staring at that picture, the room began to break down. It was ten 20-35 year old men who turned into a group of giggling 5 year olds. Jeremy was the worst one. He got to laughing so hard that I started laughing (although I agreed, the baby did look like a demon.) As long as he doesn't do that in the delivery room, we'll be fine.

We also bought the new "Baby Wagon" tonight. I really didn't want to give up the Beemer, but the 2 door coupe isn't practical for getting baby in and out and as much as I would love a 4 door BMW, it's just not something we can afford right now. I did get a really nice, fully loaded Nissan Pathfinder. It's a bit bigger than what I wanted because I was trying to get something with better gas mileage, but I know it will be much safer and easier to get baby stuff in and out when driving Sydney around. It was so nice not having car payments, but it had to be done. It will be strange to drive an automatic and something that is so much larger than my car. Sydney is costing a fortune and she isn't even here yet!

One last random thing...my ankles and feet have begun swelling some, especially after an extra long day. Last Friday I had heels on all day and we went out right after work and didn't get home until 10:30 or so and when I took my socks off, my feet and ankles were huge - like tree trunks. We tried to take pictures of them, but they didn't really come out well. I propped my feet up for a while and the swelling went away pretty fast, so I wasn't too concerned. Late at night my feet start to look like hobbit feet. Sort of fat and swollen a little, and they look like they don't belong on my legs. Flintstone feet! I find something new and weird on my body to laugh at almost everyday.

The Storm Before The Storm???

PREFACE: I'm on pain medication (Lortab) right now, so if this post is rambling or just too much info or has a lot of spelling errors, you'll know why...

Just when I start feeling great and think my last few months are going to be better than all the rest, something else comes up. I've always had the weirdest luck and the strangest things happen to me (a bird flew up my pants leg a couple of months ago), so when it comes to injuries, I'm usually the person at the doctors office that they talk about and stare at and is normally followed by a "Wow, I can't believe that happened!" I wonder if they have a medical oddities book about me? It's amazing that I've survived this long (I'm also a huge klutz for those of you who didn't know). I guess these things shouldn't surprise me anymore (or anyone that knows me). So I'm betting you're all wondering what in the world happened to her now? Well, before I get to that, let me fill you in on a couple of things - the 2 things on my upper torso that have managed to grow so large they are putting an enormous amount of pressure on my chest. Just to put it bluntly, I can't find a nursing bra bigger than 40E and I will definitely need larger ones. Well, apparently the pressure of the baby pushing out and the pressure of my 2 friends pushing in makes for a bad combination. So last night I'm walking through the kitchen eating a TUMS and I guess I inhaled as I was swallowing and kind of got choked and I coughed really hard and heard a loud "POP" in my chest. I immediately doubled over in pain and began having trouble breathing. I don't handle pain well, so I start shaking uncontrollably and I got very cold. My immediate thought was that I had just cracked some ribs. And yes, I've cracked ribs before while coughing, although I did have the flu at the time. The pain wasn't quite as sharp as it should have been for cracked or broken ribs, so I started to panic a bit wondering what the popping noise could have been. I walked around the house to regain my composure and try to decide if we needed to go to the hospital. I decided to give it a while and maybe I would feel better and to see if the baby was moving, etc. I decided to take a shower to see if the hot water made me feel better and because Sydney seems to move a lot when I shower. I felt a bit better afterwards and decided to just go to bed. Big mistake. I got in the bed and laid down and it felt like bricks had just been dropped on my chest. So now I can't breath and when I try to sit up the pain is so bad that there is no way I'll be able to push myself up. So I call for Jeremy and by the time he gets me sitting up I've started to hyperventilate. The pain was extreme and I got really cold and starting shaking again which caused my muscles to tense up which made me hyperventilate even worse. Jeremy starts trying to get me to breath properly (not in a sweet, relaxing, soothing way, but a demanding jerk kind of way) which then caused me to start crying hysterically making the whole situation very scary because I really couldn't breath then. I'm sure at that point we should have gone to the emergency room, but it was midnight and I didn't want to sit up there in the ER all night, and I was just too exhausted, so I decided to sit up and sleep (sort of sleep) for the remainder of the night and call my Dr this morning. They had me come in and he did an ultrasound to make sure all was well with Sydney. I had been counting her movements throughout the night and morning and she was as active as ever. The ultrasound showed that she wasn't up that high yet, so there was no danger to her, but they checked my placenta to make sure there were no tears, etc. They tried to look up as high as possible with the ultrasound to see if they could see an injury, but because it's under my breast, that was impossible. My Dr. said it could be a muscle/ligament injury, but because I heard a "pop", it's likely a displaced rib/ribs. There isn't much they can do about that while I'm pregnant, so it's likely I could be hurting until they are able to manipulate it back in place after the baby is born. Like I said, crazy things seem to happen to me. But now I've got some good meds and I'm about to pass out, so hopefully I'll rest a bit better tonight. Oh, and they checked her weight today - 3 pounds 10 ounces! She's a bit on the large side for 29 weeks. If she continues to gain 1 pound every nine days like she did these past days, I won't have to worry about having any ribs in place, she may just bust right on through!

Sydney's 4D Pictures

Today we had our 4D Ultrasound and got a glimpse of our little Sydney. She looks so sweet and peaceful...Im guessing she's resting up now so she can keep mommy and daddy up all night!

So, who does she look like??? I think she has the Smith mouth and chin (like her Daddy, Mimi, and aunt Carrie). But in general, I think she looks alot like me, especially around her eyes. My Papaw Langley asked if we could tell her eye color yet (he couldn't see the pictures very well). He's hoping for brown eyes - the Langley's are notorious for dark brown, almost black eyes. I can remember people asking my mom, when I was little, if I had black eyes or talking about how dark my eyes were. My granny Langley just lit up when I showed her the pictures and couldn't believe that you could actually see her face. Having babies and prenatal care has come a long way since she had her children 60 years ago! Mom and I did a little baby shopping this afternoon after attending a friend's baby shower. I think seeing all the cute things at the shower got mom excited. Her Gigi bought her 2 little sundresses and a Baby Guess denim dress. So cute.

Let's just hope she fits into all these cute little clothes I'm buying...The little chunk weighs approximately 2 pounds, 11 ounces. That's a little large for just under 28 weeks, so I'm hoping she's really, really long! At this stage, it is said that she will put on just under 1 pound every 2 weeks, which would put her over 8 pounds at birth. Sydney needs to go on a diet! No more rice crispy treats or cupcakes for you!

Well, without further ado...here's Sydney Laine

Baby Belly

Here are a couple of baby belly pictures...

This is at 5 months. (Sorry it's a bit blurry)


This is me today at 7 months. Notice the navel ring is gone.